Any recommendations on an automatic cleaning litter box?
- 2 cats
- Don’t really care about smart features, but prefer NOT to be required to use Wifi/Smartphone.
- Not interested in changing litter or using proprietary litter formula
- Not interested in models that require replacing consumables (filters, sprays, mats, etc)
- Covered preferred but not required.
- Under $500 Thanks!
The under $500 is harder.
But check out One Man 5 Cats. He’s the GOAT of automated litter box reviews, you’ll get honest, critical review of them.
Here’s a video from last year: https://youtu.be/fqQQtW1HJQQ
PLEASE BE CAREFUL when going for budget devices
Some automated litter boxes kill cats by way of entrapment or pinch hazards. It’s tragic.
Personally, I have a couple little robot threes and a couple little robot fours. I’ve had the threes for almost 4 years now and they definitely run into problems and have effectively stopped working in an automated fashion by this point.
The fours are going strong.
Of course, these are out of budget for you. Good luck!
The Litter Robot 3 is a well built and well designed workhorse. I think they cost a little more new than your budget, but they may have a model right around 500.
Depending on your comfort level with the idea and where you live, you can sometimes find them on the used market for a couple hundred dollars, or even occasionally a free non-working unit. Replacement parts are easy to get and install.
They have a WiFi model that can use an app to alert you when the tray is full or something unexpected happens, but it works just fine without the app or internet.
I will second this. We have one and it’s awesome. I pull it apart every 3-4 months or so to give it a good clean, but other than that it’s set and forget essentially
I have a Litter Robot 4 and love the thing. Been running solid for about a year now. It’s certainly not under $500, but has been well worth the money.
Seconding. Reading the other less-effusive comments has been interesting because I feel quite strongly about it. It was I think $600 when we got it and it was so difficult to stomach spending that kind of dough on a fucking litter box but now I’d drop it again in a heartbeat if anything ever happened to this one. That said, I also have three cats and now one of them has hyperthyroidism so we have to dump it every day and a half or so. It’s so often but I cannot imagine doing it with a regular litter box.
I personally never found one that worked well. I never sprang for the LR3, but I went through several others, and they all sucked.
Two problems, one I’ve personally had and one I could see happening:
- With the one I had, it wouldn’t give wet messes time enough to clump, so the cat would exit the litter box, the machine would wait but not long enough, then start the clean cycle.
The strainer would get fouled with the wet mess which would then clump after the fact rendering it non-functional.
It was more work than just cleaning a standard litter box.
- We don’t have one now, but we have one cat who is very skittish. She would be curious about the new box, then wouldn’t get within 10 feet of it after seeing it run.
Best advice?
Standard litter box + baking soda.
Small layer of litter, coat with baking soda, rest of the litter, top with baking soda, mix to combine.
You want the meowant automatic litterbox that rotates on the x-axis. I paid $300 for mine and my mom’s 2 years ago and it’s been awesome. It’s simple, easy to clean, big enough for my cat, and fits normal grocery store sized plastic bags for collection. It has an app and I didn’t start using it until about a month ago to track my cat’s weight. Before buying any automatic litterbox I would read about the dangers and never buy one that rotates on the y axis or has any possibly of trapping your cat.
Thank you all for your input an recommendations. I really appreciate it!
